- In this course we're gonna be designinga steel building using the weldments packageinside of SOLIDWORKS.This is a preview of the buildingwe're gonna be laying out.And to get started, what I want to dois I want to open up a brand new documentand start a plane and sketch on the top plane.So to do that, go ahead and open upa brand new document,or, you can open up File 1.1,which is exactly a blank documentwith just the top plane showing.Go ahead and choose that top planeand start a sketch on it.I want to define a rectangle right from the origin,and that's gonna be a center point rectangle.

Then I want to define the size of the building.So I'm gonna type here,and give it a dimension.I'm gonna type in 36 feet,and for feet, I'm gonna use the single quote,and for inches I'm gonna use the double quote.Do the same thing at the top.This time I must type in 24 feet.And then exit out of the sketch.Next, what I would like to do isdefine the size of a slab of concretethat the building's going to be sitting on.So I'm gonna go ahead and choosethe top plane one more time,choose Sketch,and start that center point rectangle one more time,right from the origin.

Define out the size,and then come up here to dimension.I'm gonna dimension from the edgeof my first rectangle,to the edge of my second rectangle,and I'm gonna type in six feet.Okay, do the same thing for the edge,six feet, all right.And then notice they're not aligned.We can easily solve this problem byclicking on the origin,and then clicking on either one of these linesand choosing mid point.You notice that puts everything on center,and then exit out.All right.

Now what we need to do is definewhere the ceiling of the building's gonna be.So what I want to do is choose the top plane,choose Features, go over to Reference Geometryand choose Plane.And notice as soon as I do that,it already has the preselected top plane,but it wasn't there.Go ahead and exit out.Choose the top plane again,pops right back in.And then for my dimension I want to type in 12 feet.It's already in there, so just type in 12 feet,click on Okay.And there's where my roof section's gonna beto start my building design.Now on my right plane, or front plane,in this case it's gonna be the front plane,I can also define the shape of the roof,or just give myself a little bit of a starting pointfor when I do start designing that roof section.

Go ahead and choose Sketch,start a new sketch,and this time I'm gonna start witha center line from the center of the building,and just pop that up right over there.And add a couple of dimensions or some linesout here to the side to definekind of the slope of the roof.We know those are gonna be the sameso go ahead and choose both of themby holding down control.Let go of control and choose Equal.All right.And we want to make sure thatthese are on the edge of the building.So to do that, let's go ahead and drawa vertical line here.

And it doesn't necessarily have to touch anything.It's kind of out in space here,here it is.Now I want to make sure that this end point hereis on this line right here.So holding down control, I select them both,and then if I let go, I can say Pierce,and that just brings that over.Do the same thing for the other side of the building.Just draw a line,making sure it is vertical.And if it's not vertical,you can always go ahead and choose Verticalfrom right there.You can also go ahead and make sure you'reshowing sketch relations by choosing Viewand then showing the sketch relations.

And once you have those on there,let's go ahead and add this point hereto this line here, holding down control,and click on Pierce.Great.Do the same thing here at the top,end of the line to the line here.And Coincidentand do the same thing over here.Coincident.Now we want to make sure that this line hereand that line over therehappen to be the same length,so let's go ahead and say Equal.Okay.We want to define these at 12 feetso type in 12 feet.

And there it is.And I can define, if I click on Normal To,from the top of the roofto the corner here,and I'll say six feet.Last thing from one of the vertical linesto the end of the roof section,define a six foot overhang.Click Okay, and there it is.That's not the final roof,that's just a good layout forwhat we're doing next.Go ahead and exit out.And now we're ready to define a few moreof the 2D sketches that are going to definethe shape of this buildingso we can start laying out our weldments.

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Released

6/17/2015

Jump-start your weldment design skills by learning to use SOLIDWORKS to create a steel building. This project-based course starts at the foundation: creating the planes, floor plan, and elevation sketches for a small shop building. Along the way, author Gabriel Corbett covers material selection, 3D sketching, and laying out structural members. Then together you'll dive into creating welded and bolted corners, trimming and extending structural members for the best fit, and using gussets, bolt plates, and a foundation to define the structure of the building. The project ends with designing a custom weldment profile and generating frame drawings that can be handed off to manufacturing.